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This is an awesome new tactic for getting off junk mail lists. I just learned it from Phillip, a Consumerist reader I met at the Consumers Union Activist Summit, who is eating a sandwich next to me. He calls it “Blitz Calling” and he’s used it to successfully get off seven different junk mail lists that initially tried to ignore him.

Most junk mail, to comply with regulation, will have a phone number for the company sending it out on it. Phillip calls the number and politely and cheerily ask them where they bought his address from and can they please remove him from their mailing list. Most of the time they say they can’t give out that information and hang up.

So he calls back. Every hour. On the hour. For an entire day.

Each time he reaches them he acts like it is his first time calling, and is just as chipper each time.

By the second day of this, everyone crumbles. They either take him off their list or give him the name of the company they bought it from. He then moves on to the seller of the information and he repeats the process until his data is wiped clean all the way back to the originator.

Phillip admits he’s a bit of a privacy nut, but he just really hates getting junk mail. He also says it wouldn’t work on a large company, like say, Best Buy. Blitz calling works because the number that’s on the junk mail disclosure goes to one guy, not a call center (junk mail distributors aren’t really big on customer service).

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